Instincts
by LoyalPaddler
Summary: An impulse. A reaction. A natural response. Sherlock Holmes returns home.


A/N: Friends! I'm well aware that this is not a particularly plausible end to the three year absence. In reality, I think we should all be bracing ourselves for some hardcore angst. But I found this silly little blip on my computer-wrote it ages ago-and I thought it would be nice to pretend that the reunion could be this easy... just for a little while. I don't own these characters. Thanks, team.

* * *

The human body is capable of truly impressive things, and Sherlock Holmes is one of the few people with eyes quick enough to _see_ some of these things happen.

The door swings open, revealing the sandy-haired doctor.

As John's eyes focus on his face, the recognition sets off a reflex near John's solar plexus.

Sherlock sees the flex of the muscles in John's chest, as the doctor's body shifts minutely backward, bringing his heart down and away. He sees John's stomach and back muscles steady his falling sternum and brace for the change in his balance.

All of this in less than half a second.

And then, and only then, does the impulse reach John's brain, allowing Sherlock to see the pain register in John's features.

Pain. Before emotion, before thought, before words.

Pain—apparently in the region of the heart—is John Watson's initial response to seeing his friend after three years.

Pain and the inescapable reflex to withdraw from the source of that pain. Hence why John's body has tried to move his heart away... Sherlock Holmes is a danger to John Watson's heart.

But then Sherlock sees something else...

John's back straightens; he shifts to stand ready, _capable_...all wide, focused gaze and steady hands in the face of the impossible.

There is emotion on his face, certainly, a wash of emotions too fast for even Sherlock Holmes to completely catalog.

But the soldier's eyes, the doctor's eyes, the brave, brave eyes do not falter.

A different sort of reflex, that.

Reflexive strength.

Then Sherlock realizes that at some point in this fraction of a moment, he's experienced a reflex of his own. His right hand has half-lifted from his side, fingers spread and reaching toward John.

An empathetic response.

Sherlock's metaphoric heart reaching toward John's physical one.

And that, right there, is perhaps the summary of why Sherlock has brought himself to this moment, why this is important enough to risk putting John through another round of hurt.

Because it turns out that Sherlock Holmes does indeed have a heart, and it has brought him back to John by way of reflex. Simple, almost unintentional. Right.

But as the first round of breath finally passes Watson's lips, Sherlock can already guess at the coming words...

_You hurt me. You hurt me badly enough, long enough that the sight of you causes more pain. Aftershocks. A psychosomatic heartbreak this time, that's your legacy here. _

And Sherlock thinks, _I'm sorry. Had to. You had to be safe. Never meant... _And then, very distinctly: _Please. _

They've gone beyond reflex now, passed into a part that Sherlock cannot predict...

But he can still see.

There in the fall of John's features, Sherlock sees the newest round of hurt, the one that _realizes_, but still asks, _What have you done to me? _

And it's worse than Sherlock imagined, the _sorry, _the guilt; he can't breathe.

John is stepping toward him. Sherlock flinches—another reflex—because he's expecting a blow, one he's more than willing to let John land. But John's arms reach, and his weight pushes in, and he's wrapping around, holding on with fists and gasps and a stuttered out voice that does not say _pain, _or _why, _or _no, _but instead says:

"_Sherlock." _

The words _barrel _over the detective's lips: "_I'm sorry, John_."

His arms have risen to enfold his friend; Sherlock doesn't remember putting them there.

John is murmuring a steady line of expletives working up from breathless to furious, then breaking back to breathless, and finishing with, "Sherlock, where have you been?"

The detective can't stop saying it: "I'm sorry."

John pushes him back a bit roughly, gripping his coat in two hands as if Sherlock might try to flee or disappear. His eyes rake up and down Sherlock's form.

John's body does not seem to know which emotion to process first and so has opted to do them all at once—his skin is pale with shock, his breath too fast. His brow is furrowed in wonderment, but anger grits his teeth. And his eyes, the brave, brave eyes, are slicked in tears.

"Are you all right?" John demands, the Army Doctor kicking in.

Sherlock laughs at the sheer _familiarity_, breathy and all at once like a shot to the ribs.

"Look at you, you _bloody idiot_!" John grits out. "You're not all right; you can barely stand." And he's towing Sherlock none-too-gently forward into the flat, trailing profanities, scoldings, and threats along like so many angry breadcrumbs.

Sherlock Holmes follows them home.


End file.
